


The Empty Flat

by lovelornity



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, One Shot, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 08:51:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/620297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelornity/pseuds/lovelornity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John struggles with life after Sherlock until the day he spots the man on the streets of London. A rightfully socks him in the face.</p><p>Written before series 3 premiered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Empty Flat

John returned to therapy when he could no longer sit alone in the silence of 221B. 

He returned to the dank and depressing seclusion of his pay-by-the-week hotel room when he could no longer stand the sight of Sherlock’s possessions nor stomach the smell of him that lingered in their flat. 

He paid his way by wordlessly accepting the checks that Mycroft placed into his hands every month, and ignored the way the older man would scrutinize his appearance in a manner so excruciatingly similar to his brother’s that John could not look him in the eyes. John would accept his invitations to dinner, participate in polite conversation, feign as if he did not know that Mycroft was simply checking up on him. Try not to blame the man for Sherlock’s demise, try to remember that he lost someone too. After months of this, he had even managed to convince himself that he did not rely upon these human interactions, that he did not need to be called upon by Mrs Hudson with a box of biscuits and tea, nor sit beside Molly on her sofa watching crap telly to keep from going mad. 

Eventually he found work at a clinic that managed to occupy so much of his time that very little was left for him to be alone with his thoughts. Except at night. When he finally did manage to fall asleep after several doses of self-administered brandy, his dreams were peppered with scenes from Afghanistan; the sound of gunfire; the smell of burning flesh; of a sidewalk red with blood; and blank, unseeing eyes of the palest blue.

When it was at its worst—when the pain in his chest and the aching in his head was overpowering—he would visit Sherlock’s grave and bore the headstone with the details of his hollow, insignificant days. Each time as he left, he would plead with his own reflection in the immaculate black marble for a miracle. For Sherlock not to be dead. For his life to have meaning again. Direction. To not feel alone in a world of friends. To see only one face amidst the sea of many in the swirling cesspool of London.

And then one evening it happened. Sitting in a cab with his head reclined upon the back of the seat and his eyes cast out toward the city, he glimpsed the face of a passer-by on the pavement just outside his window as the cab slowed to a halt at traffic lights. His heart plummeted into his stomach as he took in the familiar profile of a face he had spent a year and a half scrutinizing, memorizing, admiring, and nearly as long trying to keep from pervading his thoughts and haunting his dreams. His hair was cropped shorter except for loose curls which tumbled onto his forehead, but his manner of dress and his physical carriage was as meticulous as ever. 

Without further thought, John opened the door to the cab and scrambled out. Fishing into his pocket, he pulled out a wad of notes and threw them at the cabbie who was shouting abuse from the open window. 

Stepping onto the pavement, John had no chance to collect his thoughts before he was suddenly standing in the shadow cast by the very much alive former consulting detective walking into the glow of a streetlamp. The suddenness of the unexpected encounter was evident on the detective’s face and the way in which the name “John” escaped his lips like the exhale of a breath he had been holding his entire life. That he had never heard such an utterance of surprise, defeat, repentance, and relief come forth from the lips of Sherlock Holmes briefly crossed John’s mind, as did a vague awareness of tears bristling at the edge of pale blue eyes. But the rapid beating of his heart had forced its way into his ears, blood rushing like a war drum, and without being entirely the master of his own actions, John’s hand balled into a fist and collided with Sherlock’s face. 

A slew of curse words immediately escaped John’s lips, and he massaged his knuckles which had been violently assaulted by Sherlock’s damned, exquisite cheekbones. Sherlock brought a hand to his stinging cheek, moistened by tears that were now falling unreservedly from his eyes. A smile began to steal onto the detective’s face, a sight which sent John’s conflicting emotions of utter elation and absolute fury tumbling out of his mouth in the form of impassioned, fragmentary thoughts. 

“You. Don’t you dare smile!” he exclaimed. “You died. I watched you die!” John moved closer to Sherlock as he shouted, pressing an accusing finger into Sherlock’s thin frame. “You selfish bastard! You needed an audience, even for your suicide.” He had nearly lost his composure completely, and the tears he had kept at bay for over eighteen months finally pushed their way to the surface. “And I was there, Sherlock,” he stammered, the name surfacing as a stutter on his lips, “To see your blood shining on the pavement. You died. You _died_.”

“John.” Sherlock spoke authoritatively, the familiarity of his voice making John feel lightheaded. Sherlock’s face had returned to its usual impassive stoicism; only his tear-stained cheeks and the softness in his eyes revealed the intensity of feelings he could not bury completely. "Moriarty succeeding in a way I could never have predicted. His power over me, over us all... It was the only way to control the outcome in my favour. Do you see?"

His eyes pleaded with John's to comprehend, to understand that his had been an act of anything but selfishness. To see that the web Moriarty had spun could only be brushed aside if it were cut directly away from its source. That John, Mrs Hudson, even Lestrade had unknowingly been ensnared in its lethal clutches, the only release from which demanded their total ignorance of their escape.

"Damn it, Sherlock," John sighed, using his battered knuckles to brush the tears from his face, “No. No, I don’t see.” He looked at Sherlock. “I’m too dense, is that it? I couldn’t possibly understand, couldn’t possibly help-”

“No, John,” Sherlock interrupted, “You were too important. I couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t risk _you_.”

John opened his mouth to give an angry retort, when Sherlock added in an unsteady voice, “It was my mistake.”

John stared at him for a moment, and then in an unprecedented act of intimacy, he reached out and embraced Sherlock, his fingers digging deeply into the other man’s back out of an urgency to confirm that he was real, that John was not, in fact, standing alone in the cemetery begging for a miracle. With his forehead pressed against Sherlock’s shoulder, John was aware of the fact that his tears were soaking into the neatly pressed fabric of Sherlock’s designer suit jacket. When he felt Sherlock recoil at his touch, John clung harder to the taller man. Having assuaged his rage with a violent salutation, he was fully committed to hewing away at the despondency that had engulfed him since that afternoon on the streets before St Bart’s. But to his surprise, Sherlock’s movements were not in disgust or discomfort, but instead the result of his arms raising to return the embrace. 

Sherlock’s thin hands felt like feathers on John’s back, making him aware that such affection must have been foreign to Sherlock, the product, perhaps, of the childhood he never spoke of. Yet he did not pull away. He stood still and silent, allowing John to find the comfort he needed. After a moment, John’s arms fell to his side, and he took a step back when Sherlock’s arms did the same.

John felt the tension is his body begin to ease and the furrow in his brow recede as his world began to right itself. Sherlock, however, looked uncomfortable, as if he were dreading what would come next.

“So,” John began, kicking at a discarded cigarette with the toe of his shoe. “Let’s hear it, then. How did you do it? How did you survive? I saw you. I was there.”

“That is a story for another time,” he replied, glancing around at the pedestrians passing them on the sidewalk, at the cars rushing by.

“Nope, that’s not going to work. You’ll tell me now, Sherlock.” 

“Here? Right this instant, for all of London to hear?” he replied in a raised voice.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” John retorted. “Will you at least say how much longer this little charade of yours was going to last?”

“Until Richard Brook became Jim Moriarty once more. And the adjectives ‘fake’ and ‘fraud’ are no longer attached to the name Sherlock Holmes.”

“The first I understand, but the second one. Did it ever occur to you that I might be able to, I don’t know, help somehow? I would have stood by you. Defended you.”

Sherlock stood still for a moment, and simply stared at John, his face softening. He had supposed that John would not accept his rooftop confession, but he did not understand why. After a lifetime of being misunderstood, reviled, envied, before him stood this tiny little man with unwavering respect, admiration, and affection. Somehow John Watson continued to surprise him. 

“You wanted me to believe you were what they said,” John continued, “But I never could. I always believed, even though you were socially dysfunctional, self involved, and insanely maddening at times, you were—you are—a good man.”

A smile formed on Sherlock’s lips. “I know.”

“You know?” John asked, taken aback, his brow furrowed once more.

“I know you refused to accept the lies I told you.” 

“How could you know? You’ve been playing dead for nearly two years. We haven’t laid eyes on one another since...” He could not complete the sentence.

“That’s not entirely accurate. I...” Sherlock hesitated for a moment. “I read your blog. And I sent Mycroft round to monitor you—“ At this, John laughed dryly and repeated the word “monitor” in a clinical voice laced with sarcasm. “And I may have followed you. At first. For a few months.”

John’s eyes raged.

“You’re not going to hit me again,” Sherlock observed rather than asked. 

John did not. Instead, he shook his head and struggled to find an appropriate response amongst the swirl of words and emotions swimming in his head. “You. So infuriating. I...” 

Sherlock smiled at him, a broad sweeping smile that took his whole face with it. 

Sighing, John threw his hands up in mock surrender, still very much perturbed by Sherlock’s revelation, yet moved at the same time. He twitched his shoulders as if he could will away the tension of grief and depression that had been weighing him down. He felt a tingling feeling within his chest, like that of a limb that has fallen asleep. 

“Hungry?” Sherlock asked.

“God, yes,” was John’s immediate reply.

As the reunited friends walked together down the streets of London, John’s body still trembled. With anger, excitement, disbelief. With anticipation in making Sherlock suffer a little. But not too much. It was all meant to be a grand act of sacrifice for friends, or so he claimed. A markedly human act, which John would see appended with the experience of a plethora of emotions. Remorse, for instance. Guilt. Humility?

“Does this make me a miracle worker then?” Sherlock asked facetiously, interrupting John’s thoughts with a reminder of his omnipotence during his “death,” and the fact that he had overheard John’s very private graveside pleadings. John was filled with an intense desire to pummel him again, for the invasion of his privacy, for the nerve of the man, but all he could do was grin. And it felt wonderful. 

“It makes you an idiot.”


End file.
